Well Loved and Loving Well

Have you ever been in that situation where you need to/want to buy a gift for someone but really have no idea what to get them?  Now shift that thought over to wanting to pray for someone but now knowing what they need or how to pray for them. Well, how about this?

I pray that your love will keep on growing and you will fully know and understand how to make the right choices. Then you will still be pure and innocent when Christ returns. And until that day, Jesus Christ will keep you busy doing good deeds that bring glory and praise to God.

Philippians 1:9-11

What I find interesting with these words is that the focus is on our love growing – and who doesn’t want that for ourselves or someone else?  But what comes along with that is what came into focus for me: 

·     we will be better at knowing and understanding how to make the right choices. 

·     We’ll have a consistency of being pure and innocent in our daily living and

·     we’ll be busy doing good things that bring glory and praise to God. 

I want to make decisions today that I can be proud of and that God wants to honour, to have less ups and downs and be more consistent in my choices, actions, and reactions, and at the end of the day, as I reflect on the day, to know that I stayed busy doing things that honoured God.  I’m pretty sure you want the same so let’s ask God to work that in us, shall we?

Loving God, we all want our love to grow, for You and for others and so that’s what we are asking for today.  If we’re honest, we find we can readily love some folks but then struggle to love some others.  I know for myself there are people who fit into those categories every day.

Where we are shallow in our thinking and then in our responding, would you deepen our understanding of how much You’ve been with us through our difficult and stupid times so we can better accompany and love others going through their own set of difficult or stupid. 

We’re so grateful that as we know ourselves held safe in Your love that we experience more freedom to understand correct things to do and have more power to actually make and carry out those choices.  So, help us shift our attention from that legalistic “doing the right or the wrong thing” that can often make our hearts hard and help us to start with seeing how much You love us, welcoming that love, and out of the abundance of that love, sharing the same with others.  Amen

So, it only takes one focus today – to love well and act well we focus on letting God love us well and then love through us.  I’m looking forward to my day as I reflect on this throughout the day.